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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

The One Room Challenge- Week 1!

I was so excited when Linda from My Crafty Home Lifeinvited me to participate in The One Room Challenge. Now you might be wondering, what is The One Room Challenge all about?

The One Room Challenge involves 20 participants from DIY bloggers to designer bloggers who will have just 6 weeks to makeover a room. For six weeks, we will all be posting progress or updates on our rooms every Wednesday.

Honestly, none of the rooms in our house is decorated at all except for our living room which is about 80% completed. I immediately knew that I wanted to tackle our master bedroom. Currently, we are still sleeping in the guest bedroom and it has been very inconvenient with no attached master bath and a working closet.

We already started our master bedroom project last year. I remembered painting our master bedroom during the Mother's Day weekend because I remembered casually saying this to my husband, "Oh, and that's how we celebrate Mother's Day, right? By painting our room?"

Anyway, a little background about our home. We bought an older home about 2 years ago and there were a lot of things to fix in the house so decorating took a backseat. I don't want to bore you with the details and I am sure those of your with older homes can relate, yes?

Our master bedroom is a nice size room with a small, attached bathroom. Looking at the room, we knew that one of the previous owners must have knocked down a wall and joined the two rooms together to convert it into a master suite. The tell tale sign is the obvious support beam in the middle of the room.

I would love to show you the before picture of our master bedroom but unfortunately, we don't have any. To give you an idea, the room was painted in a salmon color with a bright red focal wall. It doesn't work for us at all.

Like all areas of our home, we will be doing it on a small budget. We will be keeping our set of bedroom furniture in a dark cherry finish that we already had for six years. To freshen up the room, I am planning to add some new accessories and new bedding.

Here is a snippet of our master bedroom.

Do you noticed the missing baseboards and the unfinished wood floor installation?

We have already painted the room in a light gray color last year while my husband is currently working on the hard wood floors. I think we must have shopped for wood floors for at least six weeks before we decided on this one. It took us a while to reach a compromise, to make a long story short. You know how that goes..... I wanted to get something nice that's more expensive but he wanted to get something on a budget.

Speaking of wood floors, my husband has been working so hard on the installation since early February this year during every weekends but up until now, it's still not completed yet. We realized we have been moving at a snail's pace.

And the reason why? He chose to install the wood floors using the more time-consuming nail-down method instead of the more popular staple-down method. And unfortunately one day, while using the mallet, he accidentally smashed his own finger. He bled quite profusely. Fortunately, his injury was not serious with no broken bones or anything. With an injured finger, he took a break. Then, a few months later, he got sick and took another break.

Did I mention what my husband do in between installing the wood floors and taking breaks?

He sorted the wood planks. According to him, he needed to find planks that are not slanted so the wood floors will be all lined up perfectly. He even used the spirit level and made remarks on each planks to determine which plank is good or bad. I don't realize my husband is such a perfectionist until now. And I thought I am the only one all along! You always learn something new about your spouse, yes?

So now you understand why our wood floor installation took that long to complete and besides, it's the size of two medium rooms. The hardwood floors is almost 75% completed now and we still have another 25% more to go!

The pressure is on because the makeover of our master bedroom will depend greatly on the completion of the wood floor installation! Let's hope my husband can get the floors done by week 2 or at least by week 3 so we can have a reveal by week 6! Keeping my fingers crossed!

My plans for the coming weeks will include:

1. Finishing the hardwood floor installation.

2. Reattaching the baseboards to the drywall.

3. Touching up the paint color.

4. Sewing/ buying the curtain panels.

5. Hanging the curtains.

6. Assembling our four poster bed and rearranging the furniture.

7. Buying accessories for the room.

I have more plans in my mind for our master bedroom but if we managed to complete everything on this list in just six weeks, I will be thrilled.

For the window treatment in our room, I am thinking about getting my own fabrics and sewing them by hand (I do not know how to use the sewing machine) or getting ready-made curtains. I will need a total of 8 panels.

In the end, I bought these West Elm curtains when I saw them on sale thinking these might save me a bit of time. I know that I will still need to take a few inches off the curtains because they are 124" long and my bedroom's ceiling height is just 92".

Anyway, after I received them, I was more disappointed than excited because the color is all wrong. I wanted a dark gray color. What color does it look like to you? It looks like gray, right? In reality, it is more of a medium taupe, like this. It's a nice color but it's not the look I am going for!

I am so bummed because I know I couldn't send it back since it's on sale. So, if you are interested in a few panels of brand new 124" long, unlined thick cotton taupe curtains in great quality, please let me know. I am selling these for just $35 per panel plus shipping. These originally retail for $50 or more per panel. Couldn't remember the exact price. Please email me at mixandchic(at)yahoo(dot)com if you have any questions. Anyone who is interested to get all 8 panels or willing to do a local pick-up will have first priority.

Now, I am not sure if I want to look online for ready made curtains or make them myself. Decisions, decisions. Follow me and my crazy decorating journey and you will find out soon! I hope I didn't bore you with the lengthy introduction of my bedroom just now. :)

Next week, I will show you the first item that inspired the color scheme of our bedroom.

Mr. doing the wood floors reminds me of working with my husband! He is much more of a perfectionist than I am ... but tend to think I get more things done than he!! Good luck with this! At least the wood is sorted!!

Oh wow, you are already in the throws of it. I'm glad your husband is ok, now...and that the boards are all sorted out. I hate to hear that about your curtains. Shopping on line can be so risky, but it also can be a home run. Sewing curtains by hand seems like it would take all summer. Can't wait to see your progress next week.

Oh yay, yay, yay!!! I remember this challenge from last year and I'm SO excited that you are in it!!!! I can't wait to see what you do with your room!!! I love the wood floors you chose. Wow our husbands are alike with their perfectionist ways- mine is the same way. I would sometimes rather take the shortcuts that no one would notice just to get things done, but he can't stand it if something he does isn't totally perfect. It works out in the end though. You'll have the most perfectly installed floors of anyone around. :) I'm so excited to watch your room unfold! Congrats Jessie!!! :D

Hi Jessie, I'm amazed that your husband is willing to tackle such a project! I'm looking at curtain panels, too and trying to decide whether to do them at all, buy panels or do custom. Whew! So many decisions to be made! I'm looking forward to watching your progress!

I am also married to a man like that...Slow and deliberate for sure.....and there would be no rushing him! I feel so bad about those curtains...hopefully they will sell and you will find what you need.

I am SO excited to see what you come up with! I love the window panels from West Elm. I got some for my LR and I adore them. I had a trim added and they look legit. i hope you like them too. PS - so nice to meet you, sorry its taken me this long to get around to say hi to everyone in the challenge. i was out of town last week. so excited to follow your progress!

Jess,A husband that can install hardwood floors - at any pace - is a husband to keep! Kudos to him. Sucks about the curtains but I'm sure someone will snag em at that great price. Good luck. Can't wait for the reveal.

Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate you taking the time to share with me your thoughts, ideas and suggestions. Your comments always, always brighten up my day! So, keep them coming. Have a beautiful day!

About The Author

Welcome to my blog. I am an Interior Decorator based in Chicagoland, Illinois. Married and a mommy of two boys. Through this blog, I will be sharing my passion for design and my inspirations with you. Occasionally, I will also be showing you my home and some of my clients' decorating projects. I am a firm believer that a beautiful home can be achieved in any budget through creativity and smart shopping. Currently, I am offering e-design (online decorating) service at an affordable rate to help you create a home that reflects you, a home that will make you smile every time you walk through the door. Hope you have fun following along. Email me at mixandchic(at)yahoo(dot)com if you have any questions. Thanks for reading!

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